Web-fed presses typically include a reel carrier for the printing material. The printing material is pulled off the reel carrier and moved successively, through a plurality of printing units. A printing ink being applied to the printing material, preferably to the underside and to the upper side of the same, in each printing unit. In the case of half-tone overprinting, four printing units are generally arranged one after another with one of the process colors (i.e., black, cyan, magenta and yellow) being applied to the printing material in each of the printing units.
A folder superstructure is connected after the printing units. A so-called folding unit is arranged after the folder superstructure. In the folder superstructure, the printed printing material is preferably cut and fed to the folding unit over turner bars in suitable relative positions. A web-fed press of this type is known, for example, from “Handbuch der Printmedien” [Manual of Printing Media], Helmut Kipphan, page 160, 2000, Springer-Verlag.
Furthermore, integrating what is known as an imprinting unit (also called an imprinter) into such a web-fed press is already known from the prior art. Such imprinting units are used for the individualization of a static printed image printed in the printing units with, in particular, changing text constituents or image constituents. According to the prior art, the imprinting unit is integrated into the web-fed press in such a way that the imprinting unit is arranged between the reel carrier and the first printing unit for producing the static printed image.